Users select service providers to perform a variety of services. For example, an operation that a company does not perform as part of its day-to-day business operations can be outsourced to a service provider that specializes in performing such operation. Similarly, if a user generates a high volume of work for a particular task, it may be more cost efficient to use a service provider than to purchase the equipment and staff necessary to perform the task.
In the provision of business services, trust can be defined as a subjective probability by which a user expects to use a service provider for performing a particular service. Trust, therefore, identifies a comfort level that a user has with a service provider. Alternately, contract can be defined as an agreement between a user and a service provider by which a service is committed to meet the user's expectations. As such, contract refers to a commitment between a user and a service provider.
One problem with identifying a service provider for a service is that a user may use a particular service provider that is not the best service provider for a particular service because of institutional inertia. Moreover, some service providers have difficulty breaking into or expanding their presence in a market even if the services that they perform are of high utility (based on price, quality or a number of other metrics) because of a lack of name recognition.